“We Want Hoopla! We Want Hoopla!” Students Message During Noon Hour Protest
“We want Hoopla, we want Hoopla,” dozens of high school, basketball players chanted in during a noon hour protest as drivers honked back in response.
That was a scene in front of City Hall as high school basketball players demanded the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation (STF) and the provincial government return to the bargaining table allowing job sanctions, announced by the STF to be removed.
The sanctions enacted by the STF earlier this morning mean teachers are not allowed to volunteer for extra curricular activities effectively killing Hoopla - the provincial high school basketball championship - if not reversed by Wednesday at 3 pm.
STUDENTS LINED THE MERIDIAN WHILE DEMONSTRATING TO ALLOW HOOPLA TO HAPPEN
Kate Waldenberger is member of the Vanier Spirits senior girls basketball team and cancelling Hoopla will be a major blow to not just the Grade 12 student but the entire Spirits team.
“It effects our team. We’ve worked so hard to be here like every other team to be here. You work hard all year to be in the championships. Hoopla is a big thing. It’s something we all want to make it,” she said.
“I want to say we support our teachers but we don’t support this,” Waldenberger said. “We want our game. We want our championship.”
It’s a message as to why she attended the quickly organized protest.
“To support Hoopla and our 2024 championship,” Waldenberger said when asked why she attended the protest.
STUDENTS PROTEST ON THE SIDEWALKS ADJACENT CITY HALL
“We’re trying to have a riot, I mean rally to get Hoopla to happen,” Luke Andrews from the Peacock Toilers said with a smile on his face.
For Andrews losing the Hoopla tournament is tough given all of the hard work it took to make the tournament.
“It really makes us mad,” he said when asked how he felt about the potential cancellation of Hoopla.
When asked who the students supported he said “we just want Hoopla to happen.”
STUDENTS PROTEST ON THE SIDEWALKS ADJACENT CITY HALL
The Saskatchewan High School Athletics Association (SHSAA) has announced in a release that if the STF job action to not allow teachers to volunteer at extracurricular events on Thursday and Friday is not resolved by 3 pm Wednesday Hoopla is cancelled.
Hoopla was set to run this coming Thursday - Saturday (March 21 - 23) and set to bring in hundreds of visitors to the city.
Similar protests were tentatively planned for Saskatoon and Regina.